Former Player Blames Columbus Blue Jackets for Prolonged Injury

By Krista Golden

A former player for the Columbus Blue Jackets is putting the blame on them for his long recovery from injury.

Kristian Huselius, an unrestricted free agent as of July 1, recently told a newspaper in Sweden that the Blue Jackets pushed him into playing well before he was healed from a pectoral injury he’d suffered while training during the 2011 offseason.

“I had not a single practice with the team before coming back,” Huselius told the paper. “I had one game to get acclimated. Then I went into [the next] NHL game and played 21 minutes. I think they acted wrong against me…I had not built up muscle mass and was not fit or ready to play.”

He went on to speculate as to why he was activated so prematurely. “Columbus was in a vulnerable position and was out of playoffs. Perhaps it was this situation that made that they wanted to bet everything on one card.”

For the record, the two games in question were against the Edmonton Oilers on Dec. 2 and the Montreal Canadiens on Dec. 6, well before any teams would be in or out of the playoffs. He had no points and earned 2 penalty minutes over both games.

Huselius first came to the NHL from his native Sweden in 2001 after being drafted by the Florida Panthers in 1997. After three seasons with the Panthers, he was traded in 2005 to the Calgary Flames, where he had career-high points totals in his two and a half years there.

He signed a four-year contract with the Blue Jackets in 2008 and enjoyed moderate success in points. He also scored a single goal in the Blue Jackets’ only Stanley Cup playoff appearance in 2009.

It is unclear at this point what Huselius’ plans for the upcoming season will be, although he has said that he wants to end his career with the Swedish Elite League.